Submitting Your Work to <i>Annals</i>: Author-Friendly Features
Authors: Jill Jackson, Christina C. Wee, Christine Laine
Journal: Annals of Internal Medicine (2023)

Editorials31 October 2023Submitting Your Work to Annals: Author-Friendly FeaturesFREEJill Jackson, Christina C. Wee, MD, MPH, Christine Laine, MD, MPHJill JacksonManaging Editor, Annals of Internal Medicine Search for more papers by this author, Christina C. Wee, MD, MPHSenior Deputy Editor, Annals of Internal Medicine Search for more papers by this author, Christine Laine, MD, MPHEditor in Chief, Annals of Internal Medicine Search for more papers by this authorAuthor, Article, and Disclosure Informationhttps://doi.org/10.7326/M23-2619 SectionsAboutVisual AbstractPDF ToolsAdd to favoritesDownload CitationsTrack CitationsPermissions ShareFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditEmail Professional burnout gets a lot of attention these days—usually in the context of clinicians struggling as they care for increasingly complex patients while meeting health system productivity targets and navigating seemingly endless administrative tasks. As clinicians and patients ourselves, we are all too familiar with this type of burnout. But as editors, we also witness another important type of burnout that plagues academic medicine and is getting less attention—researcher burnout.Academic medicine scholars are increasingly under siege in a complex and highly competitive health care and research environment. Among the challenges they face are increasing competition for research funds, growing regulatory requirements, reluctance of an increasingly mistrustful public to participate in research, and the need to maintain expertise with rapidly advancing research methodologies. They must navigate these challenges against the backdrop of “publish or perish”—including publishing in highly selective and high-impact journals like Annals and avoiding falling prey to one of the burgeoning flock of predatory journals where they risk perishing despite publishing.Annals of Internal Medicine is one of the most widely read and cited journals in the world, with an impact factor of 39.2 in 2022 (Clarivate Analytics) and with an average of well over a million views on Annals.org each month. We are also one of the most highly selective journals, and as such we recognize the tension authors face in submitting to high-impact journals. The potential to optimize the visibility of their work comes at the cost of experiencing rejection and starting the process over again. Journal editors cannot mitigate many barriers authors face in producing and publishing high-quality scholarly work. However, over recent years Annals has instituted several features intended to make the manuscript submission, peer review, and publication process experience less painful and more fruitful.Relaxed Formatting Requirements on SubmissionAnnals, like most journals, has format requirements to ensure standardization and readability. Because journals have different format requirements, reformatting manuscripts to different requirements with each submission can frustrate authors, especially when submitting to highly selective journals where rejection is likely (1). Recognizing this, Annals does not require that manuscripts conform to our formatting specifications at the time of submission. We do not burden authors with formatting issues until we are interested in publishing their work. Yet, we do recommend reviewing the information for authors (2) because it offers insight into our policies and processes, the type of work the journal publishes, and the formats we ultimately require authors to meet, enhancing the chances of success.Timely Decisions, Expedited Review, and Coordination With Presentations at Professional MeetingsTimely decisions are a priority at Annals. Every manuscript is reviewed by multiple editors before an initial decision. Nonetheless, authors received a decision in less than 1 week for 99% of manuscripts that we rejected without external review during 2020 to 2022. When our initial read determines a manuscript not to be a good fit for the journal, we believe it is best to get it back into authors’ hands without delay. Of course, decisions take longer when we think a manuscript holds promise, because we need to identify external reviewers, give the reviewers time to complete their reviews, and give the editors time to consider after review. During 2022, more than three quarters of authors received a decision in less than 1 month for manuscripts rejected after external review and within 8 weeks for manuscripts provisionally accepted pending satisfactory revision. The longer time to receipt of a decision for manuscripts provisionally accepted is due to the time needed for careful statistical review and detailed communication guiding authors through requested revisions. Authors can follow the progress of their manuscripts by logging into the manuscript processing system.In addition, authors can request expedited review for time-sensitive content with immediate public health impact. We also welcome the opportunity to work with authors to coordinate publication with presentation at a professional meeting, policy decision, or other significant external events whenever possible. Authors desiring such coordination should make the editors aware as early as possible, ideally at the time of submission.Annals’ Relationships With Other JournalsAnnals encourages authors who are submitting manuscripts rejected from other journals after peer review to submit those reviews (if permitted) along with a description of how they revised the manuscript to address reviewer suggestions. Annals can often streamline our decision making on the authors’ response to the prior review.We have formalized a version of this process by developing a peer review cascade collaboration with the editors of several journals. When authors submit their work to Annals, they can opt to have the manuscript sent to one of the following journals should Annals choose not to publish it: Annals of Internal Medicine: Clinical Cases, Arthritis & Rheumatology, Diabetes Care, Gastroenterology, Journal of General Internal Medicine, Journal of Graduate Medical Education, Journal of Hospital Medicine, or Obesity. Whether the receiving journal wants to receive only manuscripts rejected after external review or all rejected manuscripts differs by receiving journal, as noted in the manuscript submission system. These relationships serve to speed the decision process and decrease the burden on both authors and peer reviewers.In addition, when authors submit to the New England Journal of Medicine, they can similarly opt to have their manuscript and peer reviews automatically sent to Annals if the New England Journal of Medicine chooses not to publish the manuscript after external review. Doing so can avoid another round of external review, expediting Annals’ decision.Rigorous and Collaborative ReviewAnnals considers it the journal’s responsibility to help authors improve their work before publication so that the material we publish is of high quality. Although the speed of peer review is important, the quality of that review is even more important. We recognize that not every external reviewer provides feedback that authors find useful. Toward continuous improvement of the quality of reviews, the editors grade every review so that we can attempt to solicit future reviews from those individuals who provide the most useful comments. Annals is grateful for authors’ frequent praise of the thought, expertise, and detail that the physician and statistical editors provide to help authors optimize their work before publication. To foster a collaborative process with authors, Annals invites authors of manuscripts we invite for resubmission to meet virtually with the primary physician and statistical editors to discuss requests for revision. Both authors and editors find these consultations to be helpful in clarifying requests, avoiding misunderstanding, and improving the efficiency and the outcome of the revision process. You can hear what some of our authors have to say about Annals’ peer review process here: www.acpjournals.org/journal/aim/authors.Annals’ Custom Article-Enhancing Features and ActivitiesBeyond publication, it is critical that journals work to disseminate what they publish to appropriate audiences in appropriate formats. That is why Annals uses various article-enhancing features and mechanisms to increase the visibility and accessibility of authors’ work. Annals creates visual abstracts to accompany original research articles that the journal and authors can use to share their work on social media and in presentations. Annals prepares brief animated videos to summarize published systematic reviews. A twice-monthly podcast highlights new material that is available on Annals.org, and the Annals On Call podcast, Annals Consult Guys videos, and Annals Fresh Look blog are additional features that draw attention to material published in Annals. Annals gives authors the opportunity to submit brief videos about their articles intended to draw attention to their work.Weekly e-mails alert many hundreds of thousands of readers to new articles. In addition, Annals sends free article links to individuals identified by the editors as key opinion leaders who should know about authors’ newly published work. Authors are welcome to provide Annals with e-mail addresses of others whom they would like Annals to notify when their article is published.Articles in Annals also get excellent coverage by both the public and professional media, largely through the efforts of Annals’ communications team. In addition to weekly tip sheets to the media, American College of Physicians (ACP) communications staff prepare video news releases to help ensure accurate coverage of selected high-profile articles. In 2022, Annals content received nearly 3 billion media hits, including social media and traditional print and broadcast media. Nearly all Annals articles have attention scores in the top 5% of all research outputs scored by Altmetric, with some appearing in recent Altmetric “top 10” lists before they ceased creation of that list during the pandemic. Our communications team is familiar with well-respected journalists and is available to assist authors and their institutional communications offices in their interactions with the media.No Financial Barriers to Publication or Authors’ Noncommercial Reuse of Published MaterialPublication in Annals does not require fees for manuscript submission, page or color charges, or publication of figures. Because Annals is a highly selective, subscription-based journal supported by a professional organization, ACP, it does not offer an “author pays” open-access option. However, ACP makes selected content, including articles that the editors consider to be of immediate public health importance, publicly accessible for free on Annals.org. ACP also provides many countries in the developing world with immediate free access through the Research4Life program.All authors, except U.S. government employees whose work was done as part of their official duties, must transfer copyright to ACP, publisher of Annals. Transfer of copyright protects authors from misuse of their work while providing them rights for certain noncommercial reuse of their published work without the need for permission from or payment to ACP. These rights allow authors to reuse figures and tables as part of new publications; include the article, or portions thereof, in their thesis, dissertation, or collection dedicated to their educational work; and provide copies to students in courses they teach. ACP does request that authors acknowledge the original publication in Annals when reusing material for such purposes. If authors wish to reuse material in their published article for commercial purposes, they can seek permission by clicking on the “Permissions” link in the content toolbox, which is located in the horizontal bar across the top of the article on Annals.org.Annals is one of the most highly read and cited clinical journals in the world. In addition to citation in scholarly journals, Annals articles are cited in a widely used point-of-care clinical resource (3). Annals’ success and broad appeal is attributable to the high-quality content submitted by authors and authors’ willingness to collaborate with Annals to optimize their work for publication. We greatly appreciate academic scholars who choose Annals as a venue for their work and hope that some of the processes and actions described here make their professional lives a bit easier.References1. Clotworthy A, Davies M, Cadman TJ, et al. Saving time and money in biomedical publishing: the case for free-format submissions with minimal requirements. BMC Med. 2023;21:172. [PMID: 37161428] doi:10.1186/s12916-023-02882-y CrossrefMedlineGoogle Scholar2. Annals of Internal Medicine information for authors. Accessed at www.acpjournals.org/journal/aim/authors on 29 September 2023. Google Scholar3. Cain KD, Sehgal BR, Covinsky KE, et al. The clinical impact of medical journals. Ann Intern Med. 2016;165:227-228. [PMID: 27294687] doi:10.7326/M16-1096 LinkGoogle Scholar Comments 0 Comments Sign In to Submit A Comment Author, Article, and Disclosure InformationAuthors: Jill Jackson; Christina C. Wee, MD, MPH; Christine Laine, MD, MPHAffiliations: Managing Editor, Annals of Internal Medicine Senior Deputy Editor, Annals of Internal Medicine Editor in Chief, Annals of Internal Medicine Disclosures: Disclosures can be viewed at www.acponline.org/authors/icmje/ConflictOfInterestForms.do?msNum=M23-2619.Corresponding Author: Jill Jackson, Managing Editor, Annals of Internal Medicine, 190 N. Independence Mall West, Philadelphia, PA 19106; e-mail, jjackson@acponline.org.This article was published at Annals.org on 31 October 2023. PreviousarticleNextarticle Advertisement FiguresReferencesRelatedDetails Metrics November 2023Volume 176, Issue 11 Page: 1554-1556 Keywords Academic medicine Peer review ePublished: 31 October 2023 Issue Published: November 2023 Copyright & PermissionsCopyright © 2023 by American College of Physicians. All Rights Reserved.PDF downloadLoading ...